Out of the Box » hauntingshttp://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box
Notes from the Archives at The Library of VirginiaWed, 21 Feb 2018 14:43:02 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.1Ghosts in the Archives: Communing with the Virginia Historical Inventoryhttp://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2017/10/18/ghosts-in-the-archives/
http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2017/10/18/ghosts-in-the-archives/#commentsWed, 18 Oct 2017 13:00:39 +0000http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/?p=9897
In recent years, tourists and locals alike have flocked to Virginia’s many old downtown areas to attend ghost tours. These events have quickly become popular ways to learn about the ways that the past lingers in the present day, but the relationship between Virginia’s history and its ghosts is much older than the tours. The Virginia Historical Inventory (VHI) records held at The Library of Virginia illustrate that historical ghost-lore is not a new trend; Virginians in the 1930s and 1940s saw hauntings as appropriate and desirable elements of historical properties as well.

The VHI was part of the Federal Writers Project (FWP), a leg of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The FWP program hired authors to write, and researchers to find and document, iconic American stories and locations. In Virginia, researchers spanned out across the commonwealth documenting the location, status, and history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. This brought them to familiar cities like Williamsburg and Alexandria, and to smaller, more rural places that were best described by the nearest highway. They collected the information they needed from archives, newspapers, and interviews with homeowners and neighbors. Written sources gave them the names of previous owners, construction dates, and famous events. The oral interviews filled in the stories not present in the archives. In many cases, when the researchers spoke with locals they used ghost … read more »

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In recent years, tourists and locals alike have flocked to Virginia’s many old downtown areas to attend ghost tours. These events have quickly become popular ways to learn about the ways that the past lingers in the present day, but the relationship between Virginia’s history and its ghosts is much older than the tours. The Virginia Historical Inventory (VHI) records held at The Library of Virginia illustrate that historical ghost-lore is not a new trend; Virginians in the 1930s and 1940s saw hauntings as appropriate and desirable elements of historical properties as well.

The VHI was part of the Federal Writers Project (FWP), a leg of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The FWP program hired authors to write, and researchers to find and document, iconic American stories and locations. In Virginia, researchers spanned out across the commonwealth documenting the location, status, and history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. This brought them to familiar cities like Williamsburg and Alexandria, and to smaller, more rural places that were best described by the nearest highway. They collected the information they needed from archives, newspapers, and interviews with homeowners and neighbors. Written sources gave them the names of previous owners, construction dates, and famous events. The oral interviews filled in the stories not present in the archives. In many cases, when the researchers spoke with locals they used ghost stories to connect their corners of the Old Dominion to larger historical narratives, and to illustrate how the past continued to exist in the present day. The specters of Civil War battles, Revolutionary war heroes, nineteenth-century travelers, and jilted brides seemed to occupy every small town, lending historical meaning to even the most derelict homes. While the project sought to collect architectural information first and historical information second, the researchers inadvertently created a collection of Virginia ghost-lore.

In all, more than 40 ghost stories became part of the official government reports under the subheading “Historical Significance.” But even more fascinating than the simple existence of these stories in architectural records, is the fact that the ghost stories were not especially scary. Rather than being tantalizing tales of the uncanny, Virginians reported the ghosts with the same tone as, and alongside of, lists of past residents, large trees, and architectural descriptions.

Take for instance the report that Susan R. Beardsworth wrote up in the summer of 1937 about a mid-nineteenth-century house in Lynchburg called the Poston house. Beardsworth reported that the house was a “story and a half brick” dwelling, that was built in “three sections” and “remodeled or rebuilt twice.” She said the home was “very plain, simple and quaint looking,” but it was the only of its kind in the city. The current homeowner told Beardsworth to take note of the bricks, which he found to be “inferior” and poorly fired. Despite its age, singularity in the town, and unique brick work, Beardsworth wrote that the home’s main historical significance was “its legends and ghost stories.”

One story about the Poston house concerned a “beautiful Sheraton mahogany” cradle that rocked on its own. Reverend Smith, a previous resident, thought that none other than “Beelzebub” rocked the cradle. As a religious man, Smith tried to cast the demon out, but the cradle kept rocking. The story quickly spread to the surrounding towns, and soon Smith found people knocking at his door asking to see the cradle that rocked itself. Over time, the cradle stopped moving and was removed from its rockers, but the house remained well known. The cradle story inspired people to understand the home’s quirks in terms of the ghosts of past residents.

Another such story claimed that the ghost of an alcoholic Confederate major kept the dining room doors and windows open. Beardsworth explained that when the major was in his “delirium tremens stage” his family locked him in the dining room to dry out. Locked in, sick, and angry, the major beat the room’s walls, doors, and window frames with a fireplace poker. Long after his death, the wood still bore the marks of his attempted escapes. Beardsworth reported that various rumors placed the major’s ghost in the room after his death. Subsequent owners claimed that his ghost opened the dining room’s doors and windows at night, even after they were securely locked.

For the owners and residents of the Poston house, understanding the home’s history and significance meant knowing about or having seen its ghosts. And of course, residents of the Poston house were not the only ones who shared their homes with ghosts. At Roseneath in Louisa County, residents believed that the ghost of a Revolutionary-era solider named Thomas Shelton resided in “the haunted room,” tripping women as they walked up and down the stairs. At Cloverland in Prince William County, homeowners talked of a murderer whose specter washed blood off of his hands in the late hours of the night. Those who lived in the Johnson place in Nelson Country argued that the historical importance of their home came from their ghost who arrived “during war times, or before.” The residents of Still Valley in Madison County knew that the “knock, knock, knock” coming from their headboards at night was none other than the ghost of the cantankerous “Old Ned Simm.”

According to the records left by the VHI, people across Virginia used ghost stories to explain how their homes retained the past, and how the past made itself present in their lives. Some stories were mysterious like at Cloverland, and others like the major’s ghost at Poston house expressed a connection to a specific person and historical narrative. While details and historical connections varied across the reports, all of the ghost stories in the VHI files illustrated the idea that hauntings reinforced historical significance. For these homeowners and their neighbors, ghosts were evidence that their properties, like the entirety of Virginia, had a strong connection to the past. Far from being a new fad, Virginians have often looked to the uncanny and the otherworldly to explain how the past shapes and defines their lives in the Old Dominion.

In 1896, Virginia Anderson, nicknamed Jennie, filed for divorce from her husband, Epps G. Anderson, in the Scott County Circuit Court. He was in his seventies, she in her fifties, and both had grown children from previous marriages. Like many other divorce cases, Virginia and Epps accused each other of a variety of shortcomings including abuse, abandonment, property mismanagement, and infidelity. Having come across cases like this before, I was not expecting it when half way through his deposition Epps stated that “after July the 4, 1896 there had been a knocking spirit down at Doc. Kyle’s. Jennie said she would go down there …when she came back said she heard it and seen it act and it knocked on her… and she said before she started she was going to bring it up here and run me off or scare me.” Epps went on to describe a two-hour episode occurring in the night, with chairs being knocked to the floor, doors blowing open, ghostly footsteps, and a spirit that answered questions by knocking on the walls.

Epps’ daughter, Mollie Edens, also testified in the divorce case and described an encounter with the entity in which Virginia asked the spirit if it was the good spirit or the evil one and told it to “knock three licks if the evil spirit, then [it] knocked three. … read more »

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In 1896, Virginia Anderson, nicknamed Jennie, filed for divorce from her husband, Epps G. Anderson, in the Scott County Circuit Court. He was in his seventies, she in her fifties, and both had grown children from previous marriages. Like many other divorce cases, Virginia and Epps accused each other of a variety of shortcomings including abuse, abandonment, property mismanagement, and infidelity. Having come across cases like this before, I was not expecting it when half way through his deposition Epps stated that “after July the 4, 1896 there had been a knocking spirit down at Doc. Kyle’s. Jennie said she would go down there …when she came back said she heard it and seen it act and it knocked on her… and she said before she started she was going to bring it up here and run me off or scare me.” Epps went on to describe a two-hour episode occurring in the night, with chairs being knocked to the floor, doors blowing open, ghostly footsteps, and a spirit that answered questions by knocking on the walls.

Epps’ daughter, Mollie Edens, also testified in the divorce case and described an encounter with the entity in which Virginia asked the spirit if it was the good spirit or the evil one and told it to “knock three licks if the evil spirit, then [it] knocked three. She [Virginia] says if I have done anything to old Eps [sic] to quarrel on me. If I have knock three licks. If I have not don’t knock narry [sic] one. There was narry [sic] lick knocked, then directly she said they was something under her bed went like a chicken fluttering from the floor up against the bed.”

Ghosts who spoke with the living through rappings and knockings were not unique to the state of Virginia but were commonly known throughout the United States during the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most famous example included the séances performed by sisters Margaret and Kate Fox, who displayed their ability to summon a spirit and have it communicate through a series of raps in front of audiences in the United States and abroad. However, by the late 1880s, the sisters admitted that their exhibitions and medium abilities were faked.

So, did the incidents in the Andersons’ home really take place as the result of a paranormal visitor? At least one occurrence definitely did not. In his deposition, Henry M. Bryant admitted that with the consent of Virginia, he and his brother Charley staged an encounter with the spirit to frighten Epps, who at the time was nearly blind. The other episodes, well, the case files do not definitively say one way or another – they may have just been an angry wife’s attempt to chase her husband away or there could have been a ghost looking to communicate from beyond the grave. In the end, the judge presiding over this suit decided that neither party had presented any evidence to justify a divorce, and in 1898 dismissed the case from the docket.

Virginia Anderson vs. Epps G. Anderson (1898-031) and other Scott County chancery causes are currently being processed and digitally reformatted. An index of the Scott County causes is available for viewing on the Chancery Records Index found at Virginia Memory.